Affiliate marketing is still a very profitable marketing area to focus upon.
There any many 5, 6, and 7 figure marketers out there, that make tons of money from affiliate marketing.
Those sorts of people are often called super-affiliates.
Even though it is unlikely that you will become a super affiliate really quickly, as a beginner, it is a great way to get started, and you can certainly make hundreds or thousands of dollars a day, if you put in the effort.
This article will cover the basics of what affiliate marketing is, and as I add new content, will help you to build your knowledge of what is involved.
I plan to add more in-depth details on this in future, if you comment that you’d like to see that.
Affiliate marketing is quite simple, you get an offer or product, become an affiliate, and then use the link to promote it to people.
When somebody busy, you will get a commissions, which is usually a percentage of the total price, often 50%.
You can promote that link through any means, assuming that you stick to the terms of service of the places that you use the link.
So you could send an e-mail to your list which include the link (that’s what I do), you could have a link in a post on your blog (also what I do), you could use social media sites to post links.
A note on this – a lot of people think you spam the groups and pages you’re in like you have some weird affiliate link machine gun.
That just doesn’t work, the reason is because people don’t know who you are, so they don’t trust you, and they need warming up to the idea.
So please don’t be that guy (or gal).
So I’m clear, I don’t have a link on my blog that goes
directly to a product, I usually gather subscribers, and warm them up
that way, presenting them with the solution to their problems (the
offer).
Is Affiliate Marketing Free?
I want to answer this one, so that you’re aware of what you’re getting into here.
Yes, you could do this completely for free, you could have a free website, which is likely to have limited capabilities, but you could create content on a blog, which includes links and start earning that way.
The problem will be this – you don’t own that site, or the content on it.
And to grow your business as an affiliate marketer you will want to own the site, and therefore your brand – you.
You definitely could get started for free, make some money, then start again with your own site. Nothing stopping you doing that at all.
I’d say that that would be better than not starting because you don’t have the money.
There will come a point when you will need to take things seriously, and start paying.
You can build a list for free in the early stages, so if you only have a small number of subscribers, but as soon as you get the list to a size where there’s a chance you’ll make some money, you’ll have to be paying.
So, technically free, but not long term.
There are also features in the paid version that you will need that will really help you to build a stronger business.
Finding an offer for affiliate marketing
There are a ton of offers out there. Some are awesome – I have bought many myself, and some just are not worth the time of day.
Generally, hyped up products may sell well initially, but are much more likely to get refunds when they fail to deliver on their promises.
You have to understand something here – some of the numbers that some product owners show you – half a million dollars and more, made with a product.
These are not a scam as such, they may have achieved that with the same system.
You are unlikely to do that overnight.
It will take effort on your part, as it has on mine.
Many days, weeks, and months to get significant results.
To me, that is the right kind of product.
So the best products for you to promote are the ones that you have personally done, had experience of, or seen in action.
This way, you can describe them from your own experiences.
To pick a good product, you need to look into something that has a reasonable amount of sales, ideally over a thousand, make sure that it’s refund rate is low.
Low would be less than 5% ideally.
And if the stats are available, a high conversion rate than other products where everything else is similar.
Promoting an Affiliate Product
As mentioned, there are a number of ways that you can promote your affiliate product.
You could send an e-mail to your list, describing what the product did for you, or how it would help your subscribers.
You could do a review article and/or video for the product, describing what it is like, how easy it is to set up, how well it worked for you.
You could even send an e-mail to your list, sending them to that review.
If you are starting out, you probably won’t have much traffic, so on its own, the article might not be immediately effective (organic traffic often takes a time to develop).
Whilst I’ve heard a lot of people say that sending subscribers offers continually doesn’t work, that’s not exactly my experience.
I think that if those items are helpful, then it can work.
You do run the risk, if you send the latest greatest product every day, that you probably won’t get as many sales and someone who has developed a relationship with their list.
You will burn out you list, so if you were to try to build your list in that way, you will need to continually refresh the list by adding new subscribers.
As a beginner, you will almost certainly have to pay for those subscribers.
Quick and Easy Product To Promote (With FREE affiliate marketing training)
Something you might want to consider, if you want to learn how to create funnels with free training (and get a ton of free stuff just for trying), go here and watch this video. This uses the most popular funnel software you can get right now.
This means that as you learn how to create funnels, you can also describe what you’re doing, and maybe even make some sales.
ClickFunnels have a ton of training, so if you’re stuck, I’d go there to start with.
Getting Traffic To Your Affiliate Link
As previously mentioned, you can generate organic traffic.
So that is traffic from content that you create – such as videos, podcasts, blog articles, and so on.
That often takes time.
Some of the newer social media platforms may allow you to generate a small number of sales with a bit of effort.
If you have no idea how to generate traffic, but like creating videos, here is some training for $1 that will get you started. Click here for more.
Or if you have some money, then you can use solo ads.
Solo ads, if you don’t know re essentially renting somebody else’s list.
So you could buy 100 clicks from them to send toward your link. You would actually send them to a squeeze or opt-in page.
That page may offer the solution to, or allude to something that the potential subscriber wants.
Or you may give them something for free, such as a report, eBook, or video that solves their problem.
In exchange for this information, they may give you their e-mail address.
You should not pay less than $0.30 per click, because if you do, the traffic that you get is likely to be rubbish, and you won’t get sales.
To buy a solo ad, look create an account here, then look for something where the vendor makes sales. You give them a URL to your squeeze page, and they send traffic to it.
From the squeeze page, if you have confirmed opt-in, then they subscriber will get sent an e-mail that they must click the link in to be added as a subscriber.
Once they do this, you can e-mail them a link to their report / eBook / video. Y
You may also send them to your product or offer.
Your new subscriber may at that point purchase from you, although, it is unlikely.
You would expect most sales to come from your follow up sequence.
Affiliate Marketing In Your Email List
Affiliate marketing in your e-mail list consists of follow up sequences (sometimes called campaigns) or broadcasts (sometimes called newsletters).
A follow up sequence is an automated response that once a subscriber is part of your list, receives an e-mail, then at some point later, another e-mail, and so on.
The idea behind this is to educate and build a relationship with the new subscriber, and describe how you can help them.
This is a magical feeling when your follow up sequence generates sales as you are doing something else.
A note on Affiliate Marketing Commissions
Commissions are usually paid for sales, although you can get some platforms that offer cost per action (CPA) – in this case you can sometimes get paid for sending subscribers, regardless of whether they buy or not.
Almost all platform pay at given time periods, and there may well be a delay of some time where the funds are held until the point where the customer can no longer ask for a refund.
This often means that you will have to wait at least 30 days before your funds are available.
As previously mentioned, the commissions that you get paid differ, so make sure you take note of what you get paid to promote something.
Generally if the product is good, it is a lot easier to sell a cheaper product, than it is to sell something that is hundreds of dollars or more.
To get started it is often a good idea to target products where the front end (the product that appears to be being sold) is under $20.
It means you have to make a lot more sales for this to generate any sort of income.
You are developing a reputation as you go through this process.
Affiliate marketing Sales Funnel
A sales funnel is basically a bunch of web pages with a specific purpose – to aim to solve people’s problems, and do so in such a way that the visitor buys as much as in on offer.
The funnel may have a squeeze page, may also have a sales page to sell the product, a bump (click a checkbox to get a special offer) and upsell or upgrades.
These upsell and upgrades are where an affiliate marketer can make a lot of money.
The initial product may be $7, but then upsell are offered perhaps at $37, $97 and a monthly commitment at $25 per month.
This means that you could make $7 + $37 + $97 = $141, if your commission is 50%, you could get $70.50.
And 50% of the $25 monthly amount.
This happens a lot less than selling the front end product, but it can happen, and is a lovely surprise when it does.
Conclusion and Links
The affiliate marketing method that I use to this day can be found here.
This includes some really ninja techniques about how to be an affiliate marketer that there’s just no way you’d think of by yourself, that can really boost your results.
Also, if you don’t want to work out a lot of what I’ve mentioned above, you can bypass it, and get into the upgrades, which will cut your time to results significantly.
If you’re wanting some free training from another of my mentors, go here.
If watch the webinar to the end, John will make you an offer, and if you take it, I will see you inside.
If this article helped you to understand how to be an affiliate marketer, please share it with friends and family using the buttons on the left.
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Have you tried any of this yet, and if so, how did you go? Did you get stuck with anything, did you make any sales?
